Moonshine Read online

  Contents

  Copyright Information

  Chronology, Calandra Books

  Dedication

  Wizard’s Brat

  Cat On His Own

  An Inept Apprentice

  A Dark Moon

  Beachcombing

  Disaster

  Flower to Hive

  The Bog

  Circles

  The Unicorn

  Turn About

  Moonshine

  Swarm on the Wing

  The Prisoner

  Home At Last

  Something About A Hero

  The Full Moon

  Author’s Note

  Copyright Information

  Copyright © 2014 by Susan Dexter.

  Cover copyright © 2014 by Teddi Black.

  An earlier version of this book appeared as Moonlight.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC.

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  Chronology, Calandra Books

  The Prince of Ill-Luck—Warhorse of Esdragon

  The Wind Witch—Warhorse of Esdragon

  The True Knight—Warhorse of Esdragon

  The Wandering Duke—Warhorse of Esdragon

  Greycloak (Planned)—Warhorse of Esdragon

  Thistledown

  Moonshine (AKA Moonlight)

  The Ring of Allaire—Wizard’s Destiny

  The Sword of Calandra—Wizard’s Destiny

  The Mountains of Channadran—Wizard’s Destiny

  The Wizard’s Shadow

  Dedication

  This book is for

  Elizabeth, Nikki, Shelly, and the rest of Mrs. Cercell’s Third Grade class at John F. Kennedy Elementary, who shared their unicorn stories with me.

  Wizard’s Brat

  Wizards can’t cross running water.

  Tristan’s hands clamped tight to the sides of the rowboat. Splinters stabbed him. Ignoring the pain, he held on anyway. He struggled to swallow down his fear. This is the harbor. This water doesn’t truly run—it just sloshes from one side to the other. Like a bucket. A really big bucket.

  The other two boys were laughing at him. He’d shut his eyes the second they’d pushed off from the quay, which they found hilarious. Tristan opened his eyes. No use. The sky, the diving, shrieking gulls, the moored boats—nothing he saw had reality. Tristan’s attention could not stretch so far as the weathered buildings that lined Dunehollow’s shabby wharves. All he was aware of was the water. He was surrounded by it. Running water. Water wide as the world. It stretched forever.

  The oars squealed and clattered in the rowlocks. Every stroke pulled the battered dory farther out into the harbor.

  Rho, the butcher’s boy, elbowed Jock, whose father owned the boat. “Ever see a face that color?”

  “Only on a fish!” Jock scoffed.

  “I’m all right,” Tristan said faintly. He held his lips stiff and ordered his eyes to stay open. A wizard needed a strong will. Rather than look at the water, he fixed his gaze on the boys’ faces. Jock with his freckles as numberless as fish-scales. Rho pale, spending most days indoors, holding his master’s knives to the grindstone.

  “Maybe he should row,” Jock suggested nastily. “Come over here, you,” he ordered.

  Tristan stared. The command made no sense to him. The dory bobbed, losing headway as Jock stopped working the oars. Ripples too small to be waves slapped its sides.

  The fisherman’s son rose up from his seat into a crouch, facing Tristan. Evidently he meant for them to change places. Tristan shook his head and stayed where he was. His grip on the dory’s sides tightened till his fingers went white as bone.

  “Come on—rowing won’t kill you.” The dory dipped and jigged. Jock adjusted to the motion effortlessly. “Whatcha afraid of?”

  “We’ll tip,” Tristan answered honestly. As he spoke, a tiny wave broke over the dory’s left side. The boat’s bottom already had an inch of water sloshing back and forth across it. How much more would it take to sink them? Tristan had no idea, and feared every incoming drop.

  Jock sat back heavily—likely being rough on purpose. The boat bucked like a horse on a cold morning. More water cascaded in. Tristan shut his eyes helplessly. His fingers struggled to grow into the boat’s wooden sides—except all magic was useless over running water. Like wizards. And wizards’ terrified apprentices.

  “If you’re sick in this boat, you’ll swim home,” Jock told him.

  “If he can,” Rho snickered. “My Gran says wizards hate water worse’n cats do.”

  “Oh, cats swim fine—once they’re taught to!” All the harbor cats walked wide of Jock, for whenever he saw a chance, Jock “taught them to swim” by booting them off the edge of the quay. Tristan had seen him hard at his work, last time he came to Dunehollow.

  And still Tristan had been tricked, just the same as the cats. Jock lured the cats with bits of food. He’d tempted the wizard’s apprentice with friendship. Jock had casually invited Tristan to join him and Rho for a trip to the jetty. They’d look for gull’s eggs, Jock said. Tristan knew better than to get into any boat, but apparently he wasn’t as smart as the cats. He got into the dory anyway.

  Tristan’s master, Blais, sent his apprentice to Dunehollow-by-the-Sea regularly. Tristan delivered potions to those folk who’d ordered them the week past, took orders from any who didn’t need to consult with Blais in person. Gentle salves for hands crippled by damp and hard work were popular. Women wanted charms to keep fishermen safe, or lovers faithful. Tristan doled out paper-labeled dark bottles, clay jars sealed with red wax. He collected whatever payments were due in exchange—though too often of late he got only promises. His last chore before heading home would be to buy a fresh-caught fish, which he’d cook for the evening meal. Leftovers would enrich the mess of vegetable stew that simmered perpetually in the pot.

  Blais had not ordered his apprentice to get himself straight home once his work was done. It wasn’t necessary. At fourteen, Tristan was no child—he was a wizard in training. He was expected to know better than to waste his time idling about the village. He had no reason to linger in Dunehollow anyway. It wasn’t as if he had friends there.

  The hope of friends was the bait that coaxed Tristan into the wretched boat. He’d ignored the sly look behind Jock’s open words, though he’d seen it. Tristan wasn’t a fool. But he’d wanted—just this one time—for the offer to be real. He’d wanted to believe that if he wasn’t being called “wizard’s brat” every other breath, it might just be possible for him to make a friend.

  He was, after all, a fool. Jock and Rho didn’t want or need a friend panicked by something as commonplace in their lives as ordinary open water. They’d only wanted a victim. One more fun to torment than the wary cats. And Tristan had obliged.

  The rowlocks shrieked to life. The dory swung. Jock was putting the boat about. Incredibly, he was making for the quay. Tristan put his head on his knees, relieved and bitterly ashamed of his weakness.

  The dory bumped the stone quay, bobbed and bumped again as Rho scrambled out. Tristan made to follow the butcher’s boy, but Jock shoved past, carrying the mooring rope. Probably he was going to tie up the boat, Tristan decided.

  Instead, Jock gave the rowboat a mighty shove as he left it. The dory shot back a dozen feet. Emptied of two-thirds of its cargo, it rode light as a water bug. Tristan stared astonished at the broad reach of water suddenly separating him from the quay.

  “Swim for it,” Jock suggested pleasantly. Behind him, Rho leaned over and held his sides, laughing himself breathless. No question that pushing the boat off had been deliberate.

  Tristan sat frozen, his hands still on the boat’s sides. He tried to will the craft to stop moving. Of course, no magic worked upon or across running water, and certainly no
t mere wishes. He couldn’t make the boat drift back to the quay. Tristan stared helplessly up at Jock, who still held the end of the mooring rope. That rope was the dory’s only link to dry, solid land.

  “Please,” Tristan whispered. He didn’t want to scream. He didn’t want to beg. He knew he might need to do both, all the same, to make Jock pull the boat back to land. His tormentors hadn’t had nearly the fun they could expect to wring out of him. Not yet.

  “Did you hear something?” Jock cupped a hand around his left ear. Rho was still doubled over. He shook his head weakly at Jock’s question.

  “Please,” Tristan repeated, a bit louder. “Please pull the boat back.” As if they didn’t know what he wanted! He noticed that Jock had taken the oars with him too.

  “Pull you back?” Jock pretended to be confused. “What with?” He tossed the rope toward the boat. It missed. One end was tied to the dory, but the other end sank straight into the black water. Tristan’s heart sank with it.

  Maybe he could paddle with his hands? Tristan dipped a finger into the dirty water, experimenting. He did not, of course, know how to swim. Wizards couldn’t learn to swim. But he had seen that the oars pulled the boat through the water. Understanding things was important, to a wizard. Blais had taught him to keep his eyes open. Tristan did, mostly. The oars pulled, the boat moved. If he could use his hands like oars…

  The boat moved. It swung left when he used his right hand, and right when he switched to his left. That was fine, Tristan decided. The movement was consistent. He could steer, knowing that. Jock had pulled both oars together and the boat had gone straight ahead. Tristan’s arms were long, always too long for his sleeves. If he could reach water on both sides of the dory at once…maybe he could make the dory move without swinging from one side to the other.

  The instant Tristan worked the boat close to the quay, Jock used an oar to shove it away again. Tristan had been expecting the trick. He doggedly coaxed the boat back. It was no use moving to another spot—wherever he went, Jock would be there waiting for him. Jock could walk along the quay, or even run. Tristan’s paddling improved, but he did not think he could take the dory clear to the next village. Being out on the water made him dizzy. He was cold. He could barely feel his fingers. And the dory was still taking on water. Much of the caulking was missing from between the splintery planks, and water trickled in steadily.

  If it actually sank, would Jock be in trouble? Tristan decided he would likely drown before he found out. He wouldn’t have a chance to enjoy the justice of whatever punishment Jock’s heavy-handed father dealt out.

  Next time he got near enough, Tristan grabbed hold of a piling, one of the quay’s wooden supports. If he dared to crawl around the thick post, maybe he could climb out onto the quay. It wouldn’t be very much harder than climbing the apple tree beside the cottage, Unless he fell out of the boat, trying.

  Jock used his oar to rock the boat, then jabbed Tristan hard in the ribs with the butt end. Tristan let go of the piling. He wobbled and sat down, missing the narrow seat. He landed smack in the water washing over the dory’s leaky bottom, a stinking mess of fish scales and old bait Jock had left in the dory after its last use. Tristan’s clothes were soaked before he could get back onto the seat. He felt fortunate, though. Probably Jock had intended him to miss the boat entirely.

  “Must be lovely to be a powerful wizard,” Rho said conversationally.

  “And never have to work for his keep,” Jock agreed. “No nets to mend. No fish to gut.”

  “Just waggle his fingers and have whatever he wants.”

  “Why don’t he try that now?” Jock wondered. “Suppose he don’t know what he wants? I thought wizards was clever.”

  “Please,” Tristan begged. “Let me get out.”

  Jock and Rho exchanged glances. Jock shrugged. “All you needed to do was ask,” he said cheerfully, as if a mystery had been cleared up.

  Jock flopped a rope ladder out over the edge of the quay. The tide was going out, and the harbor water was dropping. Rho had only needed to scramble, but now climbing straight from the boat to the quay would be difficult.

  Tristan stared at the dangling ladder. The rope was black with age and dripping wet. It looked as inviting as a garden slug, all softness and slime. Tristan adored it. To his eyes, it was as precious as if it had been woven of spun gold. He splashed the rowboat closer, reached out, and caught hold of one of the ladder’s sides. Shaking, he raised himself to a crouch. He put one foot on the side of the boat and tightened his grip on the ladder. Leaning forward, he stepped for the lowest of the rope rungs.

  As his weight came onto it, the ladder whipped down the side of the quay. Too late, Tristan realized that it wasn’t fastened to anything at all! Jock wasn’t even still holding it. Tristan flailed, struggling desperately to fall into the boat. He knew he wouldn’t make it. The dory tipped hard under him, then turned turtle.

  As he went headlong into the water, Tristan heard shouts of laughter from the quay above. Then the water clogged his ears, and he heard nothing more except his own heart, pounding in terror.

  * * * *

  He surely went, Tristan thought, clear to the bottom of the harbor. Though it was dark down there, and he could see no clear details. The light above him looked as far away as the moon, impossibly distant. He kicked frantically toward it. To his amazement, he shot flailing to the surface.

  That did him no good. Tristan struck out with both hands in a panic, but touched only air, then water. He promptly went under a second time. Not so deeply as his first plunge—but the one gasp he’d barely had time for had been as much salt water as air. The smelly harbor water burned up his nose and did nothing to ease his lungs. Tristan kicked for the surface again.

  His clothes were full of water and weighed like lead. He seemed to have no strength in his legs. Tristan struggled with all his might, but only his left hand broke the surface before he began to go down again.

  Something poked him hard in the middle of his back. Tristan felt a flicker of anger. Jock was using the oar to push him back under! What was the point, when he was already drowning? Wasn’t he being quick enough about it?

  All at once, he was yanked upward. Tristan sailed through welcome air, then was deposited face down on the quay. The stones bruised his knees, his elbows, his chin—but at least he couldn’t sink through them. Tristan sprawled, gasping, spitting up water.

  The old sail-mender disengaged the boathook from Tristan’s belt. He dropped the tool onto the quay next to the boy. “Catch the oddest fish in these waters,” he chuckled. “Some of ‘em worth keepin’.” His own wit seemed to amuse him. “You all right, boy?” He poked Tristan’s shoulder with one callused finger.

  Tristan was too busy trying to cough his lungs inside out to answer. When he could speak, he tried to thank the old man. No one else was around, Tristan noticed. No sign of Jock, or Rho. He overlooked the two shining green eyes watching the show from the shadow of an overturned lobster trap.

  The old fisherman brushed his thanks away. “Eh, those rascals! They run like harbor rats when I come along. You go on home, boy. Stay away from the likes of they. Stupid, they are, and mean too.”

  Tristan was only too happy to do as he was told. His clothes were heavy with water, and clung so that he could scarcely drag one foot after the other. His boots were still on his feet, an unexpected mercy. They sloshed nastily as he walked straight out of Dunehollow-by-the-Sea as fast as he could stagger. Not till he was well on the road home did Tristan finally pause to squeeze some of the water from his clothing.

  Suddenly he remembered the fish. The fish for supper. The fish he was supposed to buy. Tristan hastily thrust his hand into his deepest pocket, seeking the copper coin for the fishmonger.

  The pocket was empty. So were all its mates. Tristan checked every one, though he knew perfectly well where he’d tucked the solitary coin.

  The copper had gone to the bottom of Dunehollow’s harbor. Tristan heartily wished h
e’d done the same.

  Cat On His Own

  Three minutes after he’d passed the last house on the raggedy outer edge of Dunehollow, Tristan sat down beside a bramble bush. His heavy boots had squeaked and squelched with his every step. When he sat, they sulkily fell silent.

  Tristan’s feet felt awful. His toes were cold, but not too chilled to notice that they were drowning. His thick socks had soaked up all the seawater they could, then surrendered. Their rough wool sawed with every step he took, back and forth. Either the socks were coming to pieces, or his skin was blistering. Maybe both. The one would help the other.

  Tristan tugged off his left boot and dumped harbor water out of it. He left the boot upended while he dragged its mate from his right foot. More water. No copper coin. He had not really thought it might be there. And there wasn’t room in his boots for even a small fish to be trapped. Not that he’d expected to find one of those, either.

  The wind blew, cold even with the brambles breaking its force. Tristan sighed. He watched water dripping from his sleeve onto his sock. Ought to check his pockets for fish as well, he thought. He might find the makings for a chowder.

  He needed to get himself dry, before he went homeward. He was chilled to the bone just from the soaking. If he let the wind dry his clothes as he walked, he could certainly expect to pay for the service—the fee would be aching bones, fever, and a cruelly stuffed nose. Not to mention sneezing and coughing. All his master’s herb-lore would not prevent his catching cold, though Tristan knew he would not die of the complaint. He’d only wish he might.

  With a wizard’s firestone, he could kindle a fire and dry his clothes. Warm his feet. Tristan had often used his master’s firestone, but he didn’t yet have one of his own. One of an apprentice’s tasks was to find or make his own magical tools. Tristan had searched, but he hadn’t found a firestone yet.

  So if he wanted a blaze, he must rub two sticks together till they caught fire. Tristan shivered. He’d never, ever, been able to start a fire that way. Nor could he strike flint and steel together to make a spark—iron was deadly poison to anyone who dealt in magic, and he never had any of the metal on him.